The Nord department entrusts SPIE with the task of maintaining computer equipment at 202 high schools

24/10/2018

Paris, October 24th, 2018 – SPIE ICS, the digital services subsidiary of SPIE France, has been awarded the contract to maintain all of the computer equipment at 202 high schools in the Nord department. The management of the specific environment of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region and the provision of day-to-day support, via a dedicated service centre, pose significant challenges for this vast operation, which covers almost 40,000 items of equipment.

The contract was signed in March this year to provide support in relation to the maintenance of the computer and educational equipment for all of the high schools within the Nord department. For several months now, SPIE ICS dedicated a team comprising 8 employees to this contract. Telephone assistance, remote maintenance or on-site interventions: there is a specific solution and a dedicated team for every problem encountered.

This success follows on from a previous service provided by SPIE ICS teams between 2011 and 2014, which concerned network infrastructures and the deployment of interactive educational materials (digital classrooms*, video projectors and whiteboards, etc.). This gave SPIE ICS a significant advantage, managing the educational environment in the Nord department and in particular further developping its expertise with regard to the Kwartz operating system on Linux, which is the sole operating system in use across the department.

Local assistance with a dedicated unit in Lille

SPIE ICS relies on a precise operating method to answer to to all types of request, calling upon both a local service centre based in Lille and a team of mobile technicians.

Two employees answer calls and offer telephone assistance to solve minor issues or remote interventions and maintenance for equipment and servers. In order to tackle the most complex issues, four mobile technicians are in charge of on-site maintenance.

Finally, all systems (Kwartz operating system, antivirus, servers, computers) are updated and inspected once a year within the scope of the preventive maintenance operations carried out with a view to pre-empting and preventing potential malfunctions. SPIE ICS employees dedicate two full days to this task for each institution.

About 800 spare parts available upon request

SPIE ICS also manages breakdowns of equipment under warranty by involving manufacturers and breakdowns of equipment that is no longer under warranty by replacing the defective parts. Indeed, about 800 spare parts have been procured on the basis of the list of parts consumed during 2017 to establish a level of stock appropriate to the number of high schools covered.

This system guarantees responsiveness and flexibility: “We are able to work on any part, no matter what is being requested by the customer”, explained Mamoun Benyahia, business engineer at SPIE ICS. “When combined with the deployment of considerable human resources, this hardware availability guarantees a responsive and customised service for our customers.”

The contract started in March 2018 for 2 years, which can be renewed to 2022 at the latest.

* Digital classroom: an environment in which there are as many computers as there are students, all connected to a network and controlled by a master computer.